London Chess Classic Round 2

Round two of the London Chess Classic pitted world #1 Magnus Carlsen against #2 Lev Aronian, and a dramatic 6-hour game ended in victory for the Norwegian.

So Aronian has made the worst possible start with 2 losses, while in contrast Carlsen has won his first 2 games and now has a gravity-defying live rating of 2855 Elo!

Despite lasting 6 hours, the Carlsen v Aronian clash was the first game to finish in another day of intense action!

Next to finish was the game between Judit Polgar and Gawain Jones. For a long time it seemed that Judit had winning chances, but Gawain did well to escape with a draw.

in the other games Vladimir Kramnik kept pace with Magnus Carlsen by defeating Hikaru Nakamura with the black pieces, and Luke McShane came within a whisker of beating the world champion Vishy Anand - the game ended in a draw after 108 moves!

Magnus Carlsen beat Lev Aronian. Caption competition, anyone?

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Gawain Jones escaped with a draw against Judit Polgar

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Vladimir Kramnik won with black against Hikaru Nakamura

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World champion Vishy Anand only just held on for a draw against Luke McShane

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The standings after 2 rounds (3-1-0 scoring)

Name

Fed

Elo

Gms

Pts

Carlsen, Magnus

NOR

2848

2

6

Kramnik, Vladimir

RUS

2795

2

6

Adams, Michael

ENG

2710

1

3

Nakamura, Hikaru

USA

2760

2

3

Anand, Viswanathan

IND

2775

1

1

Polgar, Judit

HUN

2705

2

1

McShane, Luke

ENG

2713

2

1

Jones, Gawain C B

ENG

2644

2

1

Aronian, Levon

ARM

2815

2

0

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The 2012 London Chess Classic runs from 1-10 December , with one rest day on the 5th December. Games start at 14:00 GMT, except round four (16:00), and the final round (12:00).

The time control is 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20 moves, then 30 minutes to finish. The 'Bilbao' style 3-1-0 scoring system is being used.

In the event of tied scores at the end of the competition, tie breaks are 1) # of wins 2) # of wins with black, 3) head-to-head result. If these mathematical tiebreakers are not enough, then there will be rapid tie-break games and if needed, a final sudden death game.

Carlsen is still in the process to show the world that he can completely dominate the chess world by constantly finishing first place in all the tournaments that he plays and by becoming World Champion and then defending his title successfully for the next 10 to 15 years.

Magnus has still not proven himself to be as dominant as either Karpov or Kasparov in their prime years. Those two would play in the same tounaments and routinely place 1st and 2nd vs. the other GMs. Their records speak for themselves. (Magnus may get there pretty soon, however !)

props to carlsen, being at the very top of the list means that to keep hes rating growing up he has to win win and win. either a lost or a draw will lower his rating and by having such a big diffence a simple draw may cost him full point or more and a win will not represent such a big deal for his astronomic rating.

"And yes the ratings accurately shows that Carlsen is 50 to 100 points stronger than the top 13 GM as of today, therefore he dominates the playing field in the round robin or double round robin tournaments. Translate this into your actual rating here in chess.com, it is relative easy to win against an opponent that is rated 50 to 100 points below your rating, and specially it is really difficult to lose against them, specially if you are playing at a slower live time control with increments for example 15min+15sec. "

Inflation or not, your argument here does not help you. If you play 10 games against someone 50 points lower than you, you will usually win more than you lose, but the trade-off is that each loss loses a few more points than your wins; thus your final rating could still end up the same as what you started with, provided that both your rating and your opponent's rating were well-established before the match.

The following comment by wrinn is very accurate: "What's also amusing is that most people seem to forget that rating is a measurement of strength relative to their playing pool. Whether you believe in the supposed inflation or not, the fact stands that Carlsen's relative strength compared to his peers is accurately represented. "

Due to the fact that the playing pool of the today's top GM has a higher rating and the fact that they only play between their bracket this is why the inflation of rating occurs, and it will continue to occur in the future and some day the top players will have a rating in the 3000+ which of course will not be equal to say that they will be much stronger players than Karpov, Kasparov or Carlsen.

And yes the ratings accurately shows that Carlsen is 50 to 100 points stronger than the top 13 GM as of today, therefore he dominates the playing field in the round robin or double round robin tournaments. Translate this into your actual rating here in chess.com, it is relative easy to win against an opponent that is rated 50 to 100 points below your rating, and specially it is really difficult to lose against them, specially if you are playing at a slower live time control with increments for example 15min+15sec.

20 years from now the #1 rated player in the world will be rated at 2900+ and the site Live Rating Chess 2700chess.com will have changed name to 2800chess.com

I believe that players like Lasker, Capablanca, Alekine, Botvinik, Tal, Fisher, Karpov,Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand were stronger players than all of today's 2700+ GM with exception of Carlsen and maybe Radjabov, Karjakin and Caruana which will be contending for the WCC during the next 10 to 15 years.

I love the people going on about "rating inflation" because their feelings are hurt that their favourite player hasn't achieved such a rating. What's also amusing is that most people seem to forget that rating is a measurement of strength relative to their playing pool. Whether you believe in the supposed inflation or not, the fact stands that Carlsen's relative strength compared to his peers is accurately represented. One could really make the arguement that it is irrelevant to say "Carlsen's 2850 is Karpov's 2720", because it is illogical to compare a player's relative strength to a pool they don't play in, in a time period that isn't now ;P

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